The Pros And Cons Of The Elementary And Secondary Education Act

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), brain child of President Johnson, was passed in 1965. ESEA was intended to mitigate disparities in access to quality academic services and learning outcomes endured by underprivileged and minority students by federally funding schools serving their communities. ESEA, later revised as No Child Left Behind, was to be one element in a larger reform agenda focused on urban redevelopment, vocational training and “EDUCATION AND HEALTH” (Thomas & Brady, 2005). In his 1965 State of the Union, Johnson proclaimed, “No longer will we tolerate widespread involuntary idleness, unnecessary human hardship and misery, the impoverishment of whole areas… ” Nevertheless, this intractable problem remains, as illustrated by recent National Assessment of Educational Progress findings:

President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) on December 10, 2015. This Act advances the 52-year-old, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in an attempt to provide quality education to all students regardless of race or ethnicity, language, disability, or family income. Viewed as a civil rights law, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act further advanced equality in education; yet it’s very cumbersome requirements became untenable for schools and educators. Viewed as a natural progression of two very successful previous acts, the ESSA was designed to provide further equal opportunity for all students. However, Florida passed their required state version that has

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law in 2002, the legislation had one goal-- to improve educational equity for all students in the United States by implementing standards for student achievement and school district and teacher performance. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the program of study for most schools was developed and implemented by individual states and local communities’ school boards. Proponents of the NCLB believed that lax oversight and lack of measurable standards by state and local communities was leading to the failure of the education system and required federal government intervention to correct. At the time, the Act seemed to be what the American educational system

On the other hand, there is an argument that the education system provides positive qualities. Some students are actually improving in the classroom and on standardized tests. In her book, Christina Fisanick found that “In Wisconsin, 87 percent of third-graders were reading at grade-level or above. This number was an all-time high, and a 13 percent increase over 2002 scores” (Fisanick, 17). Success for all is one of many purposes that come from the educational system. An education reform named No Child Left Behind signed in January of 2002 was to make sure all students were given the chance to improve. In other words, this act made educators work even harder to make sure all students were moving on and that no child was being left

If the schools didn’t make AYP for three years in a row, they had to provide free tutoring and supplemental educational service. Everyone involved felt that the NCLB had unsolved issues. (Randolph & Wilson-Younger, 2012). There are teachers that argue that the testing is not fair with the children that are under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Children with individualized education plans are being forced to take standardized test on their grade level and the teachers argue that the tests might be way above where these children are academically. This also includes the children who have English as their second language because they are struggling when they are taking the standardized tests. Additionally, Choi, (Aug. 2012) describes how many schools struggle to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the Act called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Pressures on the schools to meet the AYP can affect how each school does their testing and teaching policies. While states have been silent, the question has been whether states have a responsibility to intervene.

“Unintended Educational and Social Consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act” Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, no. 2, Winter 2009, pp. 311. EBSCOhost. In this peer-reviewed academic journal article, Liz Hollingworth, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Iowa, explores the history of school reform in the United States, and the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Hollingworth states that the great promise of NCLB is that schools will focus on the education of low-achieving students, reducing the gap in student academic achievement between White students and African-American, Hispanic, and Native American student populations. Hollingworth states that an unintended consequence of NCLB was that teachers and school administrators had to shift curriculum focus in an effort to raise test scores, but in some cases, they had to also abandoned thoughtful, research-based classroom practices in exchange for test preparation. NCLB also affected teachers, highly qualified teachers left high-poverty schools, with low performance rates especially those schools where teacher salaries are tied to student academic performance. Hollingworth concludes her article by stating “we need to be wary of policy innovations that amount to simply rearranging the deck chairs on the

Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal policy. Both Clinton and Bush administrations regulated freedom of choice within their educational policies. Clinton’s Goals 2000 increased standards for student scores within core subjects. Legislation targeting Title I, required States and school districts to “turn-around” low-performing schools, and in 1993, public charter schools increased to over 2, 000 (www.clinton5.nara.gov). Bush’s No Child Left Behind’s structure demanded high-stakes testing and created provision for privatization of public education, as well as “school choice .” No Child Left Behind not only increased the Clinton’s strong accountability disposition, but it also superimposed a new set of accountability rules that would adversely affect public schools (Porter, Linn, & Trimble, 2005). One significant requirement of NCLB is that each state must adopt challenging academic content standards and challenging student achievement standards. Additionally, states must establish Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals for each year from 2002 to 2014—that would culminate in the 2014 goal that all American students would be at or above the proficient student academic achievement standard (P.L. 107–110, 2001). When local educational agencies (LEA) failed to meet their state’s AYP goals, in addition to other criteria, they [LEA] faced the inevitability of losing their accredited status and eventually face school

The NCLB Act has become the largest intervention by the federal government. This act promises to improve student learning and to close the achievement gap between the white students and students of color. The law is aimed at having standardized test to measure student performance and quality of teacher. The Standardized exams are fully focused on reading and mathematics. This law characterizes an unequalled extension of the federal role into the realm of local educational accountability. High school graduation rates are also a requirement as an indicator of performance at secondary level. In low performing schools they get punished by receiving less funds and students have the choice to move to high performing school. The quality of our

President Lyndon B. Johnson enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) as part of the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty campaign in which largely the original goal remains today. With its main purpose to improve education fairness by providing federal funds to schools aiding students from lower income homes, this act has been reauthorized seven times over the years with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 revision the most recent.

Another example of the NCLB Act failing in the area of funding is seen in a Mexican-American school, located Houston, Texas, which does not have a library, lab equipment, or an adequate number of textbooks. This is because they are not receiving funding, because the school is being penalized for failing to improve test scores to meet AYP. The school board and administration cannot meet the needs to improve the resources for learning, thus cannot improve the overall test scores at the school. However, the administration does spend $20,000 for commercial test-preparation books and other testing materials in an effort to meet the AYP (Ellis 228). With a focus solely on raising test scores and not the actual learning process, their school will continue in this cycle of low test scores and lacking resources.

In 2015, Congress in both chambers passed a new education law, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), designed to fix some of the flaws under NCLB. The ESSA was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 10, 2015. This law shifted most of the responsibility of education policy and school accountability from the federal government to the states. “However, the law modified but did not eliminate provisions relating to the periodic standardized tests given to students” (“Every Student Succeeds Act”).

Throughout the entirety of NCLB, the federal government has been judging schools in an obscene manner: how many students are proficient in a given year. Even though proficiency is defined differently in every state, and has changed over time (“A Failing Grade for No Child”). NCLB focusing solely on test scores to measure proficiency leaves behind real student growth. There is no praise for raising students from below-basic to basic or from proficient to advance. Meaning that schools are ignoring students at both end of the spectrum (“A Failing Grade for No Child”). NCLB does not care about student growth and education, all that matters is if they meet the required test

No Child Left Behind (hereafter NCLB) was one of the largest and most comprehensive reauthorizations of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, created to “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education.” That this legislation was monumentally important for the American education system, few researchers would dare to disagree — but this is where most agreement ends. Over 70,000 articles have been written on this legislation and it is easy to drown in the myriad of researched opinions on its successes and failures; there are almost as many opinions as there are articles on this topic.

The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. "Federal policy has played a major role in supporting standards-based reform since the passage of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. That law required states to establish challenging content and performance standards, implement assessments…hold school systems accountable…" (Goertz, 2005, pg. 73)

The No Child Left Behind act was signed and put into place by President George W. Bush in 2002. The act was passed in order to replace the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), put into place by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, as part of his Great Society Program. The ESEA helped to cover the cost of educating disadvantaged students, while expanding the federal role in education. (Education Week 2015) The idea of the NCLB act, much like ESEA, was to help reform the educational system in both elementary and secondary school systems. The NCLB act was very ambitious, and brings up issues on improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged, training high-quality teachers, language instruction for limited English proficient students, 21st-century schools, and enforcing technology. (U.S. Department of Education, 2010) One of the biggest factors of this bill was the idea of closing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Bush felt that this could be done by using standardized tests to measure how students were doing, and to see how well the teachers are doing. These tests were then used to identify which school systems were not performing